


the history book on the shelf (is always repeating itself)

by Merideath



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anxiety, Avengers Endgame, Bisexuality, But mostly fluff, But only if you squint, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, I sent canon out to the farm, M/M, Multi, Pietro Maximoff Lives, Polyamory, and it didn’t come back, everybody lives in the tower
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-14
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2020-03-05 10:27:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18826816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merideath/pseuds/Merideath
Summary: The one where they watch Leverage. Assumptions are made and a dark chapter in the twins history is revealed.





	the history book on the shelf (is always repeating itself)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dresupi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dresupi/gifts).



> This little ficlet started as an ‘I wish there was a...’ where I told dresupi in a message and wrote a little bit of the dialogue and then I forgot about it. I left the little plotbunny in tumblr’s messages and didn’t think about it until a few days ago when I needed something to play with. Something fluffy and light that might just fit into endgame, without fitting in at all.  
> It’s the multiverse, baby, anything can happen.

Earth - 2012

_2015\. Ish. In this universe it is three years after the Battle of New York. Two years since Steve Rogers gutted SHIELD on a rumour, released the Winter Soldier, former prisoner of war James Buchanan Barnes. Less than one year ago the Avengers fought a battle in Sokovia against Ultron. Vision is not created. The Winter Soldier and the Falcon fight alongside the Avengers and Wanda and Pietro Maximoff. Pietro is gravely injured but survives with the help of his enhancement and the medical team assembled by Nick Fury._

... 

“No, Pietro would be the Thief. He looks better in a spandex catsuit than I do,” Darcy says. 

“Lies,” Pietro says. 

“Dude, have you seen your ass, Piet?”

“Have you seen yours?” Pietro says, arching a brow. Cocky little shit. 

“Shut up,” Darcy says, a blush warming her face. 

Steve purses his lips, but shakes away whatever thought is rattling around his head. The corners of his mouth turn up. “So we’re agreed that Sam is Maggie and Piet is Parker. That leaves you as the hacker.” 

His warm hands cradle Darcy’s left foot, working some sort of magic that soothes the ache in her feet. Selvig kept her running around most days, but today was a bad one. Not a ‘no clothes Thursday’ which Darcy was eternally grateful for, but Stark had been on the prowl in everyone’s lab space but his own. 

Darcy didn’t have a problem with Stark per se, but he’d been on house arrest ever since the whole Ultron thing occurred. Some days he really didn’t handle the little tracking monitor on his ankle all that well. Those were the days Darcy tried to excuse herself from work as early as possible, before she ended up screaming or dampening fires. 

At least Stark almost always apologised, in some manner other than verbally. That was how she got the Stark Phone in her hand and the fancy new ebook reader in her bag. Really, though, if she wanted emotional abuse she’d just call her mom. 

Well, at least the day was over now. No more Stark pacing the labs, or lower clearance lab grunts talking behind her back. All she has to deal with now is making sure Steve and Pietro behave. Which almost never happens. 

She was still glad of the whole tire fire mess her life was on any given day. Mostly. If she’d never taken the internship with Jane she never would have ended up meeting demigods and American icons. Never been in the tower the day that Cap returned with Wanda and a badly injured Pietro in tow. People that somehow because some of the most important people in her life.

They’re still assholes though. 

“Duh. I’m not as tall or as pretty as Hardison but I’ve signed my fair share of NDAs for playing about in SHIELD’s infranet. I’m awesome.”

“Oh I dunno I think you’re just as pretty,” Steve says, grabbing her ankle and moving her foot onto his lap. “So that makes me what? The mastermind?” 

“You’re pretty enough to be the hacker but I don’t wanna share the toys. So, yes, but you’re double barrelled with being the hitter. I mean it’s practically written in scripture, or at least on the Smithsonian’s walls. Steve Rogers fought here. Unless we drag in your BFF. I bet he and Eliot would get along,” Darcy says, lazily scanning through her Instagram feed. 

Steve’s hands move from her foot to her calf, digging into the aching muscles there. A tiny gasp escapes from her lips and her cheeks burn red hot. 

There was a time in Darcy’s life where she wouldn’t allow anyone to touch her, and now it felt like she would die without it. If she thought too much about it she’d turn into a big blubbering mess. Again. But still she wondered how she got to this moment of Steve Rogers casually kneading the muscles in her calf while she relaxed into the warmth of Pietro’s side.

Everything is perfect. A little bubble of happy bounces around in her chest. 

Darcy’s brain supplies her with the image of Steve’s hands moving higher up. She locks that thought behind a door in her mind. They aren’t like that. 

“Bucky can’t cook.”

“Neither can you,” Darcy says. Steve huffs out a laugh, fingertips skating up to tickle the back of Darcy’s knee. Darcy squeals, thrashing her legs. Her phone slips from her hand to sink between the couch cushions.

“I can cook better than you.”

“No you can’t.” She kicks at Steve, who wraps his free hand around her ankle. “Help me, Piet!”

“Not my circus,” Pietro shrugs. He helps himself to another handful of the weird black liquorice old people candy that only the twins and Steve eat. 

“I hate you,” Darcy hisses. 

“You gonna behave now?” Steve asks. His hands stroke over Darcy’s calves.

“Doubtful,” Pietro grins. “Fury as Sterling? Wanda as Sophie?”

“As much as I love your sister, Piet, Nat was always gonna be the grifter.”

“Wanda can act. She could grift. She was in a, uh, stage thing when we were small.”

“No,” Darcy says shaking her head. 

”There was singing.”

Steve hums thoughtfully and Darcy digs her toes into his thigh. “What?”

“If Wanda was on stage then it stands to reason...”

Darcy blinks slowly, imagining a young Wanda taking up center stage. the thought turns over in her head but something doesn’t quite add up. Shifting position, she takes in the scowl on Pietro’s pretty face and the way his fingers twist together, his knee bouncing in a blur of movement. Where one twin went the other followed. Always. 

“If Wanda was on stage then Pietro was too. Oh my gods. Please tell me it’s on YouTube. Jarvis?”

“Footage already acquired and loaded onto the main screen, Miss Lewis.”

“Thanks, J. Hit it.”

“Fuck,” Pietro says.

The video is terrible quality, of course. A woman dressed as a milkmaid carries two wooden buckets, singing something high pitched and bouncy. Along the bottom of the screen is scrawled Eurovision Song Contest. The milkmaid hit a particularly high note and two children, dressed in Sokovian traditional folk dress, lead a white goat onto the stage. 

The goat is not impressed, and the little boy, with his halo of curls, rouged cheeks, and lederhosen shorts, plants his heels and pulls, small face red with exertion. But the goat only takes one step closer to the milkmaid. The girl, with tight braids and a froth of lace beneath her skirts, elbows her brother and both begin to sing along with the milkmaid. 

“Oh my god,” Darcy breathes out. Her face flushes hot in secondhand embarrassment but she can’t quite stop the smile curving across her lips. “Oh, Piet, you’re so cute. Oh my god.”

“I hate this.”

“She’s right, you were cute.”

“Fuck you.”

“Sorry, Piet, but you kinda walked right into it, pal,” Steve says reaching across to grip Pietro’s arm before he can vibrate off the couch. 

“Oh my gods,” Darcy screeches. It’s not a pretty noise, but she can’t help the burst of joy unfurling in her belly. Twisting on the couch she lays a hand over Steve’s. “Sorry, Piet, but you’re just too cute.” 

Darcy kisses Pietro’s cheek. Her lip gloss leaves a faint pink mark. 

Pietro goes very, very still. For all of two seconds, before he’s a blur of blue and grey tracksuit vanishing into the kitchen and reappearing on the other side of the coffee table downing a bottle of water. 

“Maximoff?”

Pietro runs his tongue over his top lip. “Ask me why my sister isn’t here for movie night.”

“You said she was running errands with Natasha,” Darcy says. A fog of doubt hangs over the words. Oh, god, what if she did something, said something to hurt Wanda and ruin their friendship? 

She curls her body inward, away from Steve. Little prickles of anxiety dance up and down her back. What if Wanda hates me for crushing on her brother and Steve? Frigga help her, she knew it was stupid to hang out with stupid heroes and pretend everything was normal and it was okay to feel...something. 

“She said she was going to visit the Bartons with Natasha because I need to get off my ass and sort out my mess,” Pietro says. He paces back and forth, combing his hands through his tangled white blond hair. 

“What mess?”

“This,” Pietro say waving his hand between them. 

“Wha-,” Darcy says brows drawing together in confusion. She darts a glance from Pietro’s pained expression to Steve’s raised brows and opened lips. Oh. “Oh, uh, I should go then. So you and Steve can...talk.”

“No,” Pietro says. He moves so fast Darcy never sees it. One moment he’s as far across the living room as possible and the next he’s standing between Darcy and the coffee table, blocking the escape before Darcy can free herself from the couch cushions. 

“He doesn’t mean me,” Steve says softly. 

“Banana-balls he doesn’t,” Darcy says. 

“Idiot,” Pietro says pinching the bridge of his nose. 

“He is maybe,” Darcy says.

“Hey.”

“If the shield fits.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“Neither does a god from space, a soldier lost in time or a man that can run faster than, a uh, very fast thing.”

“Not you. Not either of you. Me, I’m the idiot for lov-...for liking you.”

“Steve, that’s you,” Darcy says pushing on Steve’s shoulder to get him to move. According to the propaganda, Captain America is as straight as one of Hawkeye’s arrows. Steve Rogers on the other hand, swung both ways. There’s a weird jealous happy flutter in her belly. Tears smarting at the corners of her eyes. 

“Both of you,” Pietro says, voice strained. 

“Way to go, boys.”

“I think he means he means you too, Darce. Both of us.”

“Both.”

“Both,” Darcy echos. She wraps her arms around her middle and closes her eyes. Everything tumbles through her mind, thoughts that jumble and clink together like the metal grommets on a hoodie going round and round in the dryer.

The math feels all wrong in her head.

“Darcy, look at me,” Pietro says softly. A warm hands brushes the hair from her face. “Futu-i. I want you. I want you both. If...if that’s okay. I thought we were going there. Somewhere, anywhere. The three of us together. We can go slow but I want you. Please.”

It’s the pleading note in Pietro’s voice that cuts straight through her. Darcy opens her eyes to see Pietro kneeling before her. His left hand cradles her cheek, the right is firm on Steve’s knee. 

“You okay, Darce?” Steve’s voice is low and hesitant. He reaches out to pull her hand away from her side and twine their fingers together. 

The air in her lungs leave in a slow hiss. Pietro’s thumb vibrates on her cheekbone beneath her glasses. “I’m okay. Admittedly overwhelmed from being asked for a threesome.”

“I’m not asking for a threesome,” Pietro says. His eyes darken, cheeks flushing furnace hot. “At least not yet.”

“Don’t be an ass, Piet,” Steve says. 

Pietro surges forward to kiss him. Steve splutters against Pietro’s mouth. The kiss is soft, until it isn’t. Steve threads his free hand through Pietro’s hair, slanting his mouth over his. When Steve pulls back his ears are nearly the same shade of pink as his lips. 

Darcy rolls her bottom lip between her teeth. She holds tight to Steve’s hand, her nails digging into his skin when pietro turns to look at Darcy, blue eyes dark.

“I’m only asking for a date,” Pietro says, eyebrow twitches up in challenge. 

“If Darcy says yes.”

“Say yes, Darcy.”

“Yes, Darcy,” she says. Pietro rolls his eyes and then he’s there, soft lips brushing over hers. The kiss is gentle and she can feel the smile curving on Pietro’s mouth as his lips move against hers.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Waterloo by ABBA. I’m not an ABBA fan, but it’s a Eurovision song so it had to be. I had the epiphany while in chat with Aenaria. It went something like this.
> 
> Me: I had a terrible thought.  
> Aenaria: what?  
> Me: I have to give the fic a title from an ABBA song. Friggan Eurovision.  
> Aenaria: Bwhaha 
> 
> She’s probably still laughing at me now. It’s okay I deserve it for being raised on rock, but that’s another story.


End file.
